On October 31st, 1950, eight hundred men, women and children set off on a 146 km trek over mountainous North Korean terrain in sub-zero conditions in what became known as the Tiger Death March. Among them were three Irish people, Columban priests, Monsignor Tom Quinlan, Borrisoleigh, Co Tipperary, and Fr. Frank Canavan, Headford, Co Galway, and Mother Mary Clare Whitty, a Holy Cross nun from Fenloe, Co Clare. All three survived the march, but only one returned home to tell the tale, writes Mairéad O’Brien

 

The Korean War broke out on June 25th, 1950, when the Communist-backed North Korean People’s Army launched a sudden attack on the West-backed Republic of South Korea. Two Irish Columbans, Monsignor Tom Quinlan and Fr. Frank Canavan, who were posted in Chuncheon near the North Korean border, were immediately offered but refused transport south to safety, choosing to remain with their parishioners.

Before long, they were arrested by the Communists and detained, along with Mother Mary Clare, in a basement in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, with up to one hundred men, women and children, the oldest of whom was 82 years of age, the youngest a year-old, and one of whom was blind.

Despite the extreme heat, the windows were kept tightly shut. The suffocating atmosphere, hordes of flies, fleas and mosquitoes and meagre rations of food and water wore them down physically. From the torture chamber above them, they could hear the moans and cries of prisoners who refused to renounce their faith, denounce Capitalism and embrace Communism. Sometimes, these torture sessions were staged, but sometimes not, and the prisoners below could not tell the difference.

After several days, the group was packed onto a train bound for Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea. The train made its way slowly for thirty-six hours, moving after dark to avoid detection by South Korean forces and standing in sidings in stifling heat by day.

For the first twenty-four hours, they did not even have a drink of water. They spent the next two months in a school converted into a concentration camp where hunger was a problem from the outset.

In September, 1950, American General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the United Nations forces in the Far East and Japan, executed a daring amphibious attack on the coastal town of Incheon, in South Korea.
By October, American troops had advanced into North Korea. News of MacArthur’s arrival raised the prisoners’ hopes of an early release, but Chinese troops entered the war on the North Korean side, prolonging the conflict.

In early October, the group was moved northward ahead of the advancing Americans to Manpo, a town close to the Chinese border on the Yalu River.
About 700 American prisoners-of-war, many of whom were wounded and all of whom had been brutally treated, joined them here.
Major Chong Myong Sil, nicknamed ‘The Tiger’ because of his love for killing people, took command. Addressing the group, he outlined his plan to march at military pace to Chunggang, a town about 145 kms away. Those who dropped out would be punished.

One of the civilians protested that children and exhausted and elderly prisoners could not walk that fast. ‘The Tiger’s’ response was brief and chilling and a harbinger of what was to come – “Then let them march till they die. That is a military order.”

The captives were divided into groups of forty to fifty, with a U.S. Army officer responsible for each group.

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